Barfly: What they want to hear, if not taste

HE APPEARED OUT of nowhere, or so it seemed. In the bar business people come and go all the time, so it’s nothing new to turn around and be face to face with someone who wasn’t there a second ago.

“I want a good vodka,” he said.

Now, when people say such things, they might actually be inquiring as to what I think the best vodka is. But they also might be checking out something they already believe to be true. As it was, I already knew what he wanted, but I gave him the benefit of my knowledge anyway.

“According to the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms, vodka is legally defined as such,” I started. “Neutral spirits or alcohol are distilled spirits produced from any material at or above 190 degrees proof, and, if bottled, bottled at not less than 80 degrees proof. Vodka is neutral spirits so distilled, or so treated after distillation with charcoal or other materials, as to be without distinctive character, aroma, taste or color.”

What does that mean?

It means that vodka is different from almost every other liquor product on the shelf. In the distillation part of the equation, vodka is very pure. In fact, so pure that it cannot get any purer.

Distillation is not the process of making ethanol; it is the process of refining it. Drinking alcohol is created by first fermenting something, either fruits or other organics. The ethanol is then removed from the rest of the compounds in a process

called fractional distillation, in which the base alcoholic liquid is boiled and its steam is collected by allowing it to condense in a coil. The farther the condensation moves up the coil the higher the concentration of alcohol, until it reaches the highest possible concentration of alcohol — 190 proof, or 95 percent pure alcohol. No matter how efficient the fractionating column used, 95 percent alcohol cannot be further concentrated by distillation.

Look it up; it’s a chemistry fact.

It is also impossible to reach that proof in your typical pot still, which means that all vodka made to be sold in the United States has to be made, at least partially, in a fractional still. In the end vodka has to be 95 percent alcohol and it has to be without “distinctive character, aroma, taste or color.”

But, if vodka has to be distilled at 190 proof and bottled at 80 proof that means that 110 proof is missing. What is that missing 65 percent? Water, and that is where the taste comes in; more than half of bottled vodka is added water.

In 1994, the ATF further refined its definition for vodka to allow a trace amount (300 ppm) of citric acid in its production. Why? So distillers may continue to use citric acid as a smoothing agent “to correct objectionable tastes which might result from such things as the water used in reducing the proof, the charcoal used in distillation, or the glass in which packaged.”

So, if vodka starts out with no distinctive taste or color or aroma — by law — and citric acid is added to smooth out objectionable tastes after distillation, the only reasonable conclusion is that the different “tastes” of vodka comes from something other than the source material.

All of which means that if you think you can really taste a difference in your vodka, then you have two options:

 Report the vodka company to the feds because it’s breaking the law.

 Congratulate yourself because you just spent $20 so you can taste a difference in added water or citric acid.

“I don’t buy any of that,” said my vodka-drinking connoisseur. “When I first started coming here, I only drank the cheap stuff. Now I only drink the best.”

I nodded, because I remembered when he had first started coming in, I had talked him into that arrangement. I do work on a commission, after all.

That only goes to show that knowledge can be a powerful tool, whether it’s used for chemistry, or for math and psychology.